Tailslide

Tailslide - A slide where you ollie with the tail and land with the tail on the edge.

Tricks to know

Ollie, boardslide, 180 ollie, noseslide, lipslide.

Things to know

This trick is a combination of a lipslide and a noseslide bundled up onto the tail. It is advanced and you need to have the alley oop motion used in a lipslide down. You will be doing and alley oop from the tail to the tail. This is tricky for a lot of reasons. You are using your tail to pop the ollie and then needing to point it at the curb and twist into a tailslide position all at once. Then you need to place it properly so that you can slide it.

Get your set up tricks down. It can be helpful to try this trick into a stall at first. This gives you time to learn the motion and landing technique. Leaving the subtle positioning of the slide until you have decent board control. Let’s look at a frontside tailslide. It is much easier than a back tail.

To do a frontside tail stall you want to be able to land solid and pop out.

Get rolling with some speed not a lot. Enough to ollie up and onto the curb.

Roll toward the curb at about 30°.
Get in 180 ollie position.
Wrap your shoulders up to rotate the 180 ollie.
When you get within a board length start to unwrap the ollie.
You want to pop the board high enough to get the back truck up onto the corner.
In an alley oop motion go up and then use the downward fall to plant the tail down.
Land the tail onto the corner and put all your weight there.
Use the front foot just to hold the board in place.
Crouch your legs a lot to absorb the impact and motion. Your weight will be going past the curb. Try to control it and let it center up above the tail. It should feel pretty good to lock in.
Over rotate the deck so that the leading wheel does not touch and act like a brake
Hop or ollie pop off the curb to roll away.

If the tail lands in place but the board doesn’t pull up and lock into the edge you need to take the weight off the front foot more. Concentrate on lifting the front of the board and pointed the back down onto the tail.

The frontside tailslide:

Get rolling with some good speed. Enough to ollie up and onto the curb and slide.
Roll toward the curb at between 10-30°. The straighter on the easier the slide will be but the harder it will be to alley oop into the slide.
Get in 180 ollie position.
Wrap your shoulders up to rotate the 180 ollie.
When you get within a board length start to unwrap the ollie. Not to close because you will need space to get up into the air and turn.
You want to pop the board high enough to get the back truck up onto the corner.
In an alley oop motion go up and then use the downward fall to plant the tail down.
Land the tail onto the corner and put all your weight there.
You want to over rotate the board a few degrees past 90. Just like a noseslide you need to get the wheels into position so that they will not stick. Use the front foot just to hold the board and make the adjustment.
Crouch your legs a lot to absorb the impact and motion. Your weight will be going past the curb. Try to control it and let the momentum push you in the slide. It should feel pretty good to lock in and slide.
Slide until you feel good and pop out. If you stop sliding and you are still on the curb then hop or ollie pop off the curb to roll away.

There is a lot of force going down into the tail on this trick. Then you do get it place right all the twisting and turning maybe make it tough to maintain balance over the slide. As with any ollie trick there will be some time before you can really pop it high enough to feel good about it.

Practice

This trick works well if you remember to over rotate and get the slide sliding. Try to do it on ledges and curbs first. It will be easier to keep from falling when you miss the plant.

Make sure to wax the area you are sliding especially the wheel spot. Grippy wheels will stop and good slide anytime. The frontside tailslide is a tough trick to learn but once you have it. It becomes one of the best tricks to pull. Doing it all in one motion and really sliding with screeching wheels is pretty cool.

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